[Note: This is an earlier post I had up before the site was hacked and trashed. From January 2016]

A song is playing through my mind as I write. It’s my “earworm” for the day: a catchy piece of music that plays over and over in the mind throughout the day.

Before I tell you the name of the song – first, let me give an apology to those who might be expecting some great classic hymn of the faith. I absolutely LOVE hymns – a lot! But no, this song is likely not one you have heard in church.

It is, nonetheless, a song filled with great theological wisdom; and that from none other than the 1970’s band, Fleetwood Mac!

Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow!

Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.

It’ll be, better than before,

Yesterday’s gone… yesterday’s gone!

If FM’s song were a couple millennia older, the apostle Paul could have been listening to it as he wrote to the Philippians. There Paul described how he wanted his life to be like Christ’s on the day he would stand face to face with his Savior:

…I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12b-13)

Or, Paul could have been thinking about the Fleetwood Mac song when he later wrote to the same church:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things [think HEAVEN!]. (Philippians 4:8)

For sure, it would have been an earworm for Paul when he wrote to another church:

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1-2)

Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow!

But why? Won’t that make me like the one of whom it has been said: “that one is so Heavenly-minded they are of no earthly-good”?

No. It will actually cause our minds to be focused on that which will occupy the lion’s share of our existence: the “forever”part that comes after this microscopic seventy, eighty, or even ninety years God gives us here (should we be so blessed!).

We please God with our love and our obedience now (thinking Heaven), which give us joy and peace today. And later, such thinking results in a better future for everyone who is there! Many of whom will be there – that is, in Heaven – precisely because of the way we lived our lives today – lives in which they saw in us eternal values – tomorrow’s values rather than yesterday’s (the world’s) values.

This is what Family Chaplains strives for in everything we do in life and ministry: We, “Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow!” We: Think Heaven! And, we forget yesterday. It’s gone!

We can do this because our God is an awesome God! (Whoops! Here comes another earworm!!)